Segway graduates from e-scooters to electric mopeds
Segway-Ninebot —yes, the same robotics transportation company of Segway fame — is adding bigger, flashier electric vehicles to its battery-powered lineup.
At an event in China on Tuesday, the company revealed its two upcoming vehicles: the Ninebot eMoped and eScooter. Both look like mopeds, or small, lightweight motorcycles. Don't confuse the eScooter with Ninebot's smaller electric scooter lineup that became ubiquitous in the e-scooter rental industry. (Now's a good time for a refresher on all the different names for electric scooters and similar vehicles.)
First up, the eScooter is a fast, seated mini-motorcycle. It can go up to 62 mph and the battery lasts for 125 miles. It clocks in at 0 to 24 mph in 4 seconds. It comes with a lot of customization from the body panel colors to the seat cushions.
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Next is the eMoped, a more traditional-looking electric bike, but it's still small and compact. It only weighs 121 pounds, compared to that of a Vespa scooter at over 300 pounds. The moped only goes up to 16 mph and the swappable lithium-ion battery comes with a range of either 25, 37, or 47 miles per charge. It's also customizable, with 4,752 possible color combinations.
Both the eScooter and eMoped will be at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas next month before they're available to buy later in 2020. Pricing could potentially be revealed at CES.
Segway-Ninebot recently unveiled its first electric dirt bike and showed off its concept vehicles, the Apex motorcycle and the Ninebot eScooter T. That's a revamped Ninebot e-scooter with new features, like self-balancing and app control to autonomously send the scooter to a parking spot.
The company calls the Apex a "super scooter," going 0 to 37 mph in 3.2 seconds, the fastest Segway-Ninebot product ever. Too bad it's just an idea.
Topics Electric Vehicles
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
